[A] shrewd primer. [Morris] writes with tight clarity and blistering pace.
— Bloomberg News

Will provide some important background that will help decipher the meaning behind today's gloomy financial headlines. For those who wonder "Why?", here's a place to get some answers!

Charles Morris, author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, isn't one for sugarcoating. His analysis is dour and grim, but certainly not dull. And when read against a backdrop of an ever-weaker economy, increasingly anxious economists and a stream of gloomy predictions, it can be downright scary..Morris serves up a sharp, thought-provoking historical wrap-up of the U.S. economy and its markets, along with clear scrutiny of today's economic woes.

There is good news and bad news about this book. The good news is that Morris has taken a complex subject and made it accessible for most readers. The bad news is that his analysis of our current economic mess will trigger restless nights and cold sweats . . . .To better understand how the world economy has been pushed to the brink and what the post-crash political/economic environment might eventually look like, this book provides both insight and a possible peek into our future.
—Larry Cox

In his brief but brilliant book, Morris describes how we got into the mess we are in . . . . Few writers are as good as Morris at making financial arcana understandable and even fascinating.
—Floyd Norris

Morris offers a persuasive diagnosis of the long-building credit crash . . . . An especially graceful writer, he accessibly explains Wall Street's arcane instruments . . . . This is a smart layperson's guide.

IN 2005, while running a financial-software company, Charles Morris became convinced that credit markets were heading for a crash. He found a publisher who was willing to take a gamble and began tracing the roots of the yet-to-unfold crisis. However up to date it may seem, this book is no rush job. Mr Morris deftly joins the dots between the Keynesian liberalism of the 1960s, the crippling stagflation of the 1970s and the free-market experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s, before entering the world of ultra-cheap money and financial innovation gone mad.
—The Economist